Friday, March 4, 2011

"When I lay in bed with my wife and we watch The Bachelor, she thinks I am such a great catch after she watches that moron bachelor. He's a very good-looking guy but he's got the personality of an eggplant."

Pia Toscano, Thia Megia, Lauren Alaina, Karen Rodriguez and Lauren Turner gave our favorite performances during the Top 12 girls night on American Idol Wednesday, with judge Jennifer Lopez commenting that this crop of ladies is "supremely talented" during the broadcast.

Pia closed the show with a pitch-perfect, standing-ovationed "Stand By Me," 15-year old Thia Megia performed a stripped-down, spotlit "Out Here On My Own," 16-year old Lauren Alaina belted a sultry, energetic "Turn On the Radio," Karen Rodriguez alternated Spanish and English during a surprisingly powerful "Hero," and Lauren Turner - while not "in-the-camera" enough, has one of our favorite voices of the season.

John Mayer took some time away from best boy Ricky Van Veen (top photo) to mingle with Carey Mulligan, leading her through the venue hand-in-hand and introducing her to his friends, while Adrian Grenier had his eye on Katie Lee Joel, but didn't seem to know who she was. ("What's your full name?" he asked, tapping her number into his cell phone).

The gorgeous Zoe Kazan held nothing back - dancing feverishly in a baby blue number - not even quitting when missed her step and fell over on the floor, while Ed Westwick channeled a Sex Pistol, showing up in a trimmed biker hat and leather jacket.

The top 12 boys performed live for the first time on American Idol Tuesday, with some strong contenders emerging and some hard-to-watch less-than-strong on the screen.

In the front of our minds were Paul McDonald (with his dance-tastic, throwback "Maggie May"), Brett Loewenstern (whose "hair shakes" were awkward but vocals brilliant during "Light My Fire"), Casey Abrams (an unlikely sex god during "I Put A Spell On You"), Jacob Lusk (who can sing the phone book, but appeared slightly dated as he belted "A House is Not a Home"), and James Durbin (who commanded the stage during a raging "You've Got Another Thing Comin").

"That's why we fight with each other. That's why we drink. We're living in a house for two months with that shit. We can't have cellphones, TV, radio or the Internet. If the president died, we'd have no idea. There's no normalcy. It's just like prison, with cameras."

Monday, February 28, 2011

It was a relatively predictable night at the Oscars, with The King's Speech snagging Best Picture and three other awards, Colin Firth earning Best Actor for his respective role, Natalie Portman winning Best Actress for Black Swan, and Melissa Leo and Christian Bale earning Best Supporting Actor/Actress for their roles in The Fighter.

Co-hosts James Franco and Anne Hathaway played uninterested-in-Hollywood dreamboy and overeager fan-girl (respectively), while Inception took awards for Cinematography, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing and Visual Effects, The Social Network for Film Editing, Soundtrack, Adapted Screenplay, Alice in Wonderland for Art Direction and Costume Design, and Toy Story 3 for Original Song by Randy Newman.

Check out a full list of winners here, and view our favorite photos of the night, above.